Dr.Robinson was appointed Commander-in-Chief for the defense of the city, and James H.Lane was appointed second in command.

But Lane was the principal figure in the enterprise.

He alone had military experience, and he alone had the daring, the genius and the personal magnetism of a real leader.
The free State men, for the last year, had been passing through the furnace-fires of a vigorous discipline, and they would have fought as the Tennessee and Kentucky backwoodsmen of Andrew Jackson fought behind their cotton bales at the battle of New Orleans.

They had seen their rights wrested out of their hands by a mob of ruffians, and now they were proposing to settle the matter in that court of last resort that is the final and ultimate appeal of the nations.

Except Gen.